Philosophy is first and foremost a method of inquiry, and the distinguishing mark of that method is that everything is open to questioning. Beliefs that are taken for granted in other disciplines and in everyday life are examined to see whether there are good reasons to accept them. This open-minded search for truth and the attempt to ground our beliefs by providing good evidence for them is the essence of philosophy.
Traditionally, the main questions asked in philosophy have been divided into several main areas. Metaphysics or ontology is concerned with the nature of reality. What is the world really like and what is merely appearance? Is everything ultimately just matter in motion or is there a spiritual component to reality? Is the world governed in a rational manner? What is the nature of the human mind? Do human beings have free will? Does God exist, and if so, what is the nature of God? These are all examples of important metaphysical questions.
A second major area of philosophy, epistemology, is concerned with the nature of knowledge and justified belief. The field of logic is a particularly important subfield of epistemology. Logic is the study of how we can properly use reason to make correct inferences. Through learning how to think logically, we can better ensure that our beliefs are justified, no matter what the particular subject matter of our beliefs. Some important epistemological questions that lie outside the domain of pure logic include the following: What is the difference between knowledge and mere opinion? Does knowledge require certainty? Is knowledge acquired mainly through the senses or through reason? Is faith an adequate foundation for belief? What sorts of things can we have knowledge of? Does science provide us with knowledge in a way that other methods of inquiry do not? Is knowledge possible at all?
Another important area of philosophy is aesthetics, which involves the study of the evaluative responses we have to much (if not all) of our raw experience of the world. When we see a magnificent painting or a beautiful landscape, for example, we respond in a certain way. In general, we judge the things we experience to be beautiful, ugly, sublime, tasteless, and so on. Aesthetics involves the analysis of these kinds of responses. Here are some typical questions asked in aesthetics: Is beauty in the eye of the beholder or are there objective facts about what is beautiful and what is not? What makes a work of art great? Can a work of art with an immoral message be beautiful or are beauty and goodness inextricably linked in some way? How does the aesthetic value of human-made works compare with the aesthetic value of natural objects? Can art give us knowledge of about the world? How does music express emotion? What is the nature of aesthetic experience?
Another central area of philosophy is ethics, which in the most general sense is simply the study of how we ought to live. Some typical questions in ethics include the following: Is the rightness or wrongness of an action solely a function of the consequences that are produced by that action? Do we have an obligation to treat the interests of others as being equally important to our own interests? Are there objective facts about what is right and wrong, or is morality simply a function of what individuals believe or of the dominant moral beliefs in one's culture? Why should we be moral at all? Is abortion morally permissible? Do the rich have a moral obligation to help out the poor? What is the best form of society? How is the power of the state justified? These latter two questions properly belongs to the field of social and political philosophy, which is a very important area of philosophy that deals with questions about how the social and economic structures in which individuals act ought to be organized. This field can be classified as a particular branch of ethics since it deals with the question of how we ought to live, but with a focus on the institutional structure of society.
It should be emphasized that any subject whatsoever can be examined in a philosophical manner. Hence, there are numerous other branches of philosophy such as philosophy of law, philosophy of education, philosophy of science, philosophy of economics, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, and so on. But these fields all involve asking specific metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic and ethical questions. A large part of the study of philosophy consists of looking at the answers that have been given to these sorts of questions by historically important thinkers. In all cases, we are interested in these people not simply because they are well-known philosophers but because their thoughts can hopefully shed some light on our own understanding of the world and our place in it.
